UNESCO

11/08/2016

Ten anti-Israel resolutions approved by member states.

United Nations General Assembly committees in New York voted Tuesday on at least ten anti-Israel resolutions, including two that ignore Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, and refer to the area solely by its Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif.

“We will continue to fight at all times and in all forums against those who deny the historical and religious ties that bind the Jewish people with Jerusalem,” said Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN.

“Even when the votes are stacked against us and resolutions that are completely divorced from reality succeed in passing UN bodies, it is important that moderate states stand up and make sure that their voices are heard to counter the lies disseminated by the Palestinians,” he said.

Danon added that, thanks to work done by his office, EU member states issued an “explanation of the vote” that clarifies that the site was significant to the world’s three monotheistic religions.

The votes come just one month after a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) board and committee passed two resolutions with similar language.

Four of the resolutions deal with the issue of Palestinian refugees, including extending the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency to June 2020.
The resolutions took Israel to task for violations against Palestinians; called on it to end settlement activity; and demanded withdrawal immediately to pre-1967 lines. Also, Israel was told by way of the resolutions to accept the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention to territory over the pre-1967 lines.

One decision spoke of UN Human Rights Council resolutions against companies doing business in or with the settlements and another condemned Israel for not returning the Golan Heights to Syria.

UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer noted that only a small number of nations stood with Israel on the votes, citing as an example a vote to renew the mandate of a special committee to investigate Israeli practices, saying 86 voted yes, 71 abstained and seven opposed.

The US, Canada and Australia joined Israel, backed by the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. Those abstaining included EU members, as well as several from Africa and Latin America, including Argentina, Mexico and Costa Rica, UN Watch said.

“Even as Syrian President Bashar Assad is preparing for the final massacre of his own people in Aleppo, the UN is about to adopt a resolution – drafted and co-sponsored by Syria – which falsely condemns Israel for ‘repressive measures’ against Syrian citizens on the Golan Heights. It’s obscene,” said Neuer.

Separately, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to return Israel’s Ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, to Paris. Netanyahu had asked the envoy to return to Israel last month to protest the UNESCO Jerusalem votes.

The PA told UNESCO that the Dead Sea Scrolls are part of THEIR heritage!By: Jewish Press News BriefsPublished: November 6th, 2016

A worker of the Israel Antiquities Authority sews fragments of the Dead Sea scrolls, in a preservation laboratory at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Photo Credit: Flash 90

Don’t fall off your seats on this one.

Following their success in erasing the Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount at UNESCO, the Palestinian Authority has decided to ramp it up a bit, according to a report on IBA’s Reshet Bet.

“This is just another example of their provocation and chutzpa in attempting to rewrite history. In any case, just like the Temple Mount and Kotel, the Dead Sea Scrolls will stay in our hands, while the Palestinians will be left with their hidden dreams.”

Sharma-Cohen used the word “Ganuz” in Hebrew, playing on the Hebrew name for the Dead Sea Scrolls “HaMegilot HaGenuzot” – The Hidden Scrolls.

The most well-known texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls are the ancient religious writings found in eleven caves near the site of Qumran… [in the eastern Judean desert]

Scroll dates range from the third century BCE (mid–Second Temple period) to the first century of the Common Era, before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. While Hebrew is the most frequently used language in the Scrolls, about 15% were written in Aramaic and several in Greek. The Scrolls’ materials are made up mainly of parchment, although some are papyrus, and the text of one Scroll is engraved on copper.

About 230 manuscripts are referred to as “biblical Scrolls”. These are copies of works that are now part of the Hebrew Bible.

We have no doubt that UNESCO will fully support the PA’s historical revisionism.

PM tells Italian president Israel was ‘gravely disappointed’ by Rome’s abstention in UNESCO vote on Jerusalem, pleased by pledge it won’t happen again

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday told visiting Italian President Sergio Mattarella that Israel was “gravely disappointed” by Italy’s abstention in a UNESCO vote last month that ignored Jewish and Christian links to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, but was heartened to hear a subsequent pledge from Italy’s prime minister that it would oppose such resolutions in the future.

He also told his guest that the conflict with the Palestinians was never about their desire for their own state, but rather about their wish to destroy the Jewish state, and he insisted that it was wrong to see West Bank settlements as the root of the problem. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he asserted, won’t recognize a Jewish state “in any borders.”

“This conflict is not and never was about a Palestinian state, which successive Israeli governments, including this prime minister, have been willing to arrange — a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said, speaking at the start of a meeting with Mattarella at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. “It was and is about the Jewish state, and unless and until our Palestinian neighbors face this, confront these demons, give up the ghost of trying to destroy the Jewish state by this or that means, peace will be harder to achieve.”

Noting that his guest had just met with the Abbas, Netanyahu charged that the PA leader “continues to refuse to accept a Jewish state in any boundaries, and this remains the core of the conflict — this persistent Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish state in any configuration.”

The prime minister declared that criticism of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, land that the Palestinians want for a future state, is misguided. “I think the focus that people (place) on settlements is wrong. (The conflict) preceded the settlements by half a century. And when we left Gaza and all the settlements (in 2005), they continued to fire rockets at us,” he said.

Netanyahu said he had approached both “Hamas and President Abbas,” and asked if they would recognize the Jewish state if the settlement issue is resolved. “And they won’t, because the real settlement issue is the settlements of Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa, Akko; the persistent refusal is to recognize a Jewish state in any borders,” he said.

Netanyahu recalled having seen the Arch of Titus in Rome which depicts the spoils of war looted by the Roman army from Jerusalem after it destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD.

“I raise this because we’ve just had an absurd decision of UNESCO that said that the Jewish people have no connection to the Temple Mount. Well, the Arch of Titus was built by Titus’s brother, the Emperor Domitian. He wasn’t a Zionist propagandist. And he obviously was depicting that long, thousands-year connection to the Temple Mount, to Jerusalem and to this country of the Jewish people.”

“UNESCO’s attempt to erase Jewish history is an attempt to say that Jews really don’t have any connection to our land. It’s not only false, blatantly false, it also makes the achievement of peace harder,” he said. “Denying our history is one of the means of denying the Jewish state. This is the bad news.”

“Now, the good news. The good news, the incredible news, one that fills me with great hope, is that there is a dramatic change taking place in the Arab world, and that change is that many of the Arab countries see Israel no longer as their enemy, but as their ally, even their vital ally, in fighting against Islamist terrorism, militant Islam, either led by Iran or led by Da’esh,” Netanyahu said, using the Hebrew acronym for the Islamic State group.

A few days ago, Israel recalled its ambassador to UNESCO for consultations after the U.N. culture body adopted a second resolution in two weeks that Israeli leaders said ignored Judaism’s connection with one of Jerusalem’s holiest sites, Reuters reported.

The resolution adopted by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Paris refers to the compound as a “Muslim holy site of worship”, just as its resolution Oct. 13.

The latest vote, like the first, deals with the safeguarding of the city’s religious heritage.

At the Paris meeting, Israeli ambassador Carmel Shama Hacohen dropped a copy of the resolution into a trash bin.

According to Haaretz, contacts were made by Israel and the US via “secret channels,” which culminated in a panel session Wednesday morning when Palestinians and representatives of the Arab countries “were surprised” that Croatian and Tanzanian ambassadors demanded a secret vote, rather than passing the decision by consensus, as is permitted by UNESCO regulations.

Meanwhile, the PLO voiced its support for the resolution in a statement Wednesday saying that, “Contrary to what the Israeli government claims, the resolution that was voted by UNESCO aims at reaffirming the importance of Jerusalem for the three monotheistic religions,” adding that Al-Aqsa “continues to be threatened by the systematic incitement and provocative actions of the Israeli government and extremist Jewish groups.”

“Through an orchestrated campaign, Israel has been using archaeological claims and distortion of facts as a way to legitimize the annexation of Occupied East Jerusalem,” the statement added.

The resolution’s approval also came after reports emerged Tuesday suggesting that Israeli police would now recommend permitting members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, after they were banned last October in an attempt to ease tensions at the site.

Tensions around occupied East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound were a main contributor to a wave of unrest that began last October, after right-wing Israelis made frequent visits to the site during the Jewish holiday season this time last year.

Two weeks ago, Israel lashed out at UNESCO for renewing a similar resolution that condemned it for restricting Muslim access to the site, in a part of Jerusalem captured by Israeli forces in a 1967 war.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its capital, a position that is not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent state they seek in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

UNESCO has joined forces with Islamic State. The fundamentalists now have a new weapon: resolutions passed by servile international bodies.

An earlier delay and the opposition of UNESCO’s chief, Irina Bokova, had raised hopes that this act of jihadist, barbaric, unjust, and, frankly, arrogant supremacism might be voted down. It was not. Now a new lie was given the sanction of the world’s largest and most unaccountable body whose reason for being is to preserve significant sites, not to bowdlerize them.

Lies by UNESCO to rewrite history, erasing all traces of Judaism and Christianity to favour a jihadist Islamic fancy, were already under way in 2015. UNESCO fraudulently renamed two ancient Biblical Jewish sites, Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs, as Islamic sites. Historically, Islam did not even exist until the seventh century.

This is the history of Islam, how it takes over — with both hard jihad (violence) and soft jihad (usurping history, migration [hijrah], political and cultural infiltration), and intimidation (soft jihad with the threat of hard jihad underneath it). What is even more saddening is that often, as with this vote, it is done with the West’s cooperation and voluntary submission.

Before the United Nations, with its authoritarian, anti-democratic voting blocs, finishes eradicating Western, Judeo-Christian civilization, as it is clearly trying to do, it is high time for Western democracies to run, not walk, away, before further harm comes to them too, as it surely promises to do.

UNESCO last August planned to vote on the historical status of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and its associated Western Wall. Back then, this author stated that UNESCO’s plan was to deny any Jewish link to this most central of all Jewish holy sites, to trash a history going back thousands of years, and to claim the Mount and the Wall as Islamic sites.

Islam believes that it is eternal and had therefore preceded the other two great monotheisms, Judaism and Christianity, even though it was only to become visible to the world through Mohammad in the seventh century AD, but entitled to elbow out the two older religions.

Lies by UNESCO to rewrite history, erasing all traces of Judaism and Christianity to favour a jihadist Islamic fancy, were already under way in 2015. UNESCO fraudulently renamed two ancient Biblical Jewish sites, Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs — abracadabra — Islamic sites.

Historically, Islam did not even exist until the seventh century.

This is the history of Islam, how it takes over — with both hard jihad (violence) and soft jihad (usurping history, migration [hijrah], political and cultural infiltration), and intimidation (soft jihad with the threat of hard jihad underneath it). What is even more saddening is that often, as with this vote, it is done with the West’s cooperation and voluntary submission.

The Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is now, according to this deeply compromised body, supposedly the “Ibrahimi Mosque,” and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem is supposedly the “Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque,” even though it never could have been a mosque. As the saying goes, “calling a cat a pig does not make it one.”

UNESCO’s latest resolution to deny any Jewish link to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the most central of all Jewish holy sites, is not the first time the body has tried to rewrite and falsify a history going back thousands of years. UNESCO had previously declared the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron (left) as the “Ibrahimi Mosque,” and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem (right) as the “Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque.” (Images source: Wikimedia Commons)

Now a new lie has been given the sanction of the world’s largest and most unaccountable body, whose reason for being is to preserve significant sites, not to bowdlerize them.

On October 13, the news was broadcast that UNESCO had passed a majority vote endorsing this rape of archaeological and Biblical history. On the following Tuesday, the resolution was endorsed by the body’s executive board. If your majority, however, consists of members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (the OIC, a bloc consisting of 56 Islamic states plus “Palestine”, and possibly the largest bloc at the UN), a fraudulent result such as this should probably not come as a surprise.

An earlier delay and the opposition of UNESCO’s chief, Irina Bokova, had raised hopes that this act of jihadist, barbaric, unjust, and, frankly, arrogant supremacism might be voted down. It was not. Following the vote, Bokova issued a powerful statement condemning it, saying, among other things:

“The heritage of Jerusalem is indivisible, and each of its communities has a right to the explicit recognition of their history and relationship with the city. To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justified its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

“Nowhere more than in Jerusalem do Jewish, Christian and Muslim heritage and traditions share space and interweave to the point that they support each other. These cultural and spiritual traditions build on texts and references, known by all, that are an intrinsic part of the identities and history of peoples.”

Now the Christian and Jewish worlds will have to deal with the resolution’s ramifications, the first of which is that all democracies would be wise immediately to abandon the United Nations, or at the very least to stop funding it, before further harm comes to them too, as it surely promises to do.

The resolution was first proposed to UNESCO by seven Muslim states (Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan on behalf of the Palestinian Authority — all OIC groupies — in October 2015. Any reputable body empowered to protect ancient religious sites would have rejected it out of hand and given those responsible a dusty answer.

UNESCO’s parent body, the United Nations, has over many years increasingly shown itself as untransparent, unaccountable and thoroughly disreputable — from its $100 billion, never-prosecuted, oil-for-food embezzlement scandal exposed in 2004, to “Peacekeepers” who demand sex from children in exchange for food; to its incessant, fabricated persecution of one member state, Israel, while giving unlimited passes to the most ostentatious violators of human rights in other nations.

Before the UN, with its authoritarian, anti-democratic voting blocs, finishes eradicating Western, Judeo-Christian civilization, as it is clearly trying to do, it is high time for Western democracies to run, not walk, away.

Of UNESCO’s 195 member states, 35 are fully Islamic nations, another 21 are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and four are OIC observer states. That makes 60 who represent a bloc favourable to Muslim-inspired resolutions, yet UNESCO’s Board consists of only 58 members. That board approved Resolution 19 with 33 votes in favour, six against and 17 abstentions. Ghana and Turkmenistan were absent altogether. Only six countries voted against the resolution — the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Estonia. Revealingly, France, Spain, Sweden, Russia and Slovenia were among those who supported it. It is not hard to identify the source of the majority vote.

“UNESCO ignores the unique Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, the site of two temples for 1,000 years, and the place to which Jews prayed for thousands of years… The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and proving that there is no low to which it will not reach.”

Jewish patience in the Holy Land is being tested to the limit.

UNESCO’s vote is just the latest example of Muslim supremacism as expressed in the demolition, re-definition, or outright expropriation of the places of worship, shrines, and other buildings linked to other faiths — invariably faiths that have long preceded Islam itself, including Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as Judaism and Christianity. The process began in the year 630, two years before the prophet Muhammad’s death, when his forces conquered his hometown of Mecca. During a brief stay there, before returning to Medina, he ordered all of the 360 idols in the Ka’aba, and all those in private homes, to be destroyed. The Ka’aba itself, long a centre of pagan worship, was transformed overnight into the most important building of the Islamic faith, the Qibla or the spot towards which Muslims still turn in prayer five times a day. It sits at the heart of the Masjid al-Haram, the most important mosque in the Muslim world.[1]

Early Muslims did more than expropriate the building for their own purposes. They created a legend to justify their possession of the site.[2]

But the Qur’an and subsequent Muslim tradition are not content to re-establish history, bringing Abraham out of the Land of Canaan as far down as the Arabian Peninsula. They transform Abraham himself. According to the Qur’an (3:67): “Abraham was neither a Jew (yahudian) nor a Christian (nasranian), but was rather a pure worshipper of God (hanifan), a Muslim….”

This forms part of a broader enterprise. In Islamic doctrine, all true, monotheist religion has, from the beginning, been only Islam. Thus, Adam was the first Muslim and the first prophet. Abraham was a Muslim and a prophet. Moses was a Muslim and a prophet. Noah was a Muslim and a prophet. Jesus was a Muslim and a prophet. In the beginning, everyone was a Muslim and all land belonged to Islam. In the Qur’an, we read:

“Say, ‘We believe in God, and in that which was sent down to us, and in that which was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in what Moses and Jesus were given, and in what the prophets were given form their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we submit.”

That last phrase reads nahnu lahu muslimun. It can be read generically, meaning “those who submit themselves to God”; or specifically to mean “We are Muslims.”

The belief that all true religions involve submission to God and that, in this sense, all true religion may be defined as “Islam” (literally “submission”), may be taken as a unifying, comprehensive declaration of a universal truth, without prejudice to anyone except “idolaters” such as Hindus and Buddhists.

But this generalization was soon forgotten when Muslims found themselves in competition with the followers of other faiths: Jews in Medina, Christians throughout the Byzantine empire, or Zoroastrians in Iran. Muhammad had originally preached his religion as one in harmony with the views of the “People of the Book,” the Jews and Christians who had been sent their own scriptures by God. But not long after his taking control of Medina, he turned on the city’s three important Jewish tribes, expelling two, then attacking the third, the Banu Qurayza, beheading all the men and teenage males and taking the women and children as slaves. From here on, the Qur’an is rife with condemnations of the Jews as a people and of Christians as corrupters of scripture: “O believers, do not take Jews and Christians as your friends” (Qur’an 5:51)

Once Muslim armies went out to conquer Persia, Turkey, Greece, the Levant, all of North Africa, the Balkans, Hungary, Poland and then conquered Portugal, Andalusia in Southern Spain and other Christian territories, all sense of an identity with the People of the Book as, in a sense, fellow Muslims, went out the window, to be replaced by a sense of them as dhimmi or subjected people, the preservation of whose lives and property were contingent on the payment of a protection tax (the jizya) and on agreeing to live as humiliated denizens under special laws of subjugation in lands ruled by Islamic caliphates.

One consequence of this unequal relationship were countless rules, including special, marked clothing that predated the compulsory yellow Star of David that Jews were forced to wear during Hitler’s Third Reich, and that churches and synagogues could not be founded, repaired, rebuilt or given prominence in competition with mosques; and there could be no audible summons to Jewish or Christian prayers.

More than that, the occupation and transformation of lands of earlier religions — Persia, Turkey, Greece, all of North Africa and much of Eastern Europe — proceeded apace during unstoppable Islamic conquests. In Jerusalem, two structures were erected on the Temple Mount (giving rise to the claim for UNESCO’s recognition): the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Masjid al-Aqsa, “the Farthest Mosque”, although no one has a clue where that might have been; very possibly in Arabia) and the Qubbat al-Sakhra, or Dome of the Rock, constructed on the alleged site of Abraham’s aborted sacrifice, no longer of Isaac but now Ishmael, the progenitor of the Arabs. Both were built within the first century of Islam.

There is no need here to list all the churches converted to mosques during succeeding centuries. Most notable are the Hagia Sophia churches of the Christian Byzantine empire in Constantinople, Eregli, Nicaea, and Trebizond, refashioned as mosques after the Ottoman conquest of 1453.[3]

Today, the Islamic State has destroyed or converted churches, shrines, and other monuments (including Muslim sites) in Iraq and Syria.

Similar devastation took place under the various Islamic states in India, with something like 2000 Hindu temples destroyed to make way for mosques and other Muslim structures, while a similar fate befell others.

This extraordinary level of fanaticism is not unique to Islam (one only has to think of Oliver Cromwell and his puritans in England), but it has been far more extensive and has continued for many more centuries.

It is a totalitarian puritanism. Today’s resolution against the Jewish faith must be put in this context.

Today, the Mecca and Medina of the first and second centuries of the Islamic faith have been all but wrecked, not by the Islamic State or any other radical entity, but by the Wahhabi Saudi government. In the past two decades, major historical sites in Mecca and Medina, all related to the lifetime of the Islamic Prophet Mohammad and shortly after, have been destroyed or disfigured to the point where neither city is recognizable save for the Ka’ba and the Grand Mosque in Mecca, and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. And the two major mosques are themselves much expanded modern constructions.[4]

UNESCO has put Jewish sites with Muslim names into Muslim hands, in the heart of Israel’s capital, to try slowly to destroy the Jewish state. UNESCO is not fooling anyone.

It may not be long before Christian holy places and churches in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth will also be handed over on a plate to placate the forces of Islam, fearful of what they may do not just in the Middle East, but in Europe, North America and Europe, happy to have someone finally try to eliminate those supposedly pesky Jews. All Judeo-Christian countries would be wise to pull out of the UN, or at least cease funding it — before it is too late for them, too.

Denis MacEoin is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He has just completed work on a large study of Western concerns about Islam.

[2] There is more than one version of this tale, but it is broadly this: the Ka’aba was first built by the Prophet Adam with the help of angels, then destroyed in Noah’s flood, and finally rebuilt by the Prophet Abraham and his son Ishmael. The Qur’an itself advances the story about Abraham’s role:

“And [remember] when We made the House [that is, the Ka’aba] a place of visitation [a pilgrimage site] for mankind, and a sanctuary, ‘Take the place of Abraham as a place of prayer.’ And we made a covenant with Abraham and Ishmael, ‘Purify My House for those who circumambulate, those who live there in retreat, and those who bow and prostrate.” …. And [remember] when Abraham and Ishmael were raising the foundations of the House, ‘Our Lord, accept it from us. Truly, You are the Hearing and the Knowing.'” [Qur’an 2: 125, 127]

[3] The former Portuguese cathedral of Tangier, now the city’s Great Mosque; the Christian basilica of St. John the Baptist, captured in 634 and turned into the Great Umayyad Mosque, one of the oldest, and considered the fourth holiest site in Islam; the small Catholic Basilica of Saint Vincent of Lérins, after the Umayyad conquest demolished to make way for the Great Mosque of Córdoba (restored as a cathedral after the Renconquista in 1236). Under the Ottomans, churches in Cyprus and Hungary were replaced as mosques; and as French colonies became independent in the 20th century, many churches were converted into mosques, including the St. Philip Cathedral in Algiers, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs in Constantine (Algeria), the Tripoli Cathedral and the Benghazi Cathedral in Libya.

[4] The vast Jannat al-Baqi cemetery, which holds so many remains of Muhammad’s family, close companions and the earliest Muslim saints, has been levelled, and all domes and mausoleums turned to dust. That act followed earlier levellings by Wahhabis in 1906 and the ultra-Wahhabi Ikhwan in 1925. Those included the graves of the martyrs of the Battle of Uhud and that of Hamza, the prophet’s uncle and most beloved supporter. So too the Mosque of Fatima (Muhammad’s daughter), the Mosque of the Manaratayn (the twin minarets), and the cupola that marked the burial place of the prophet’s incisor tooth. Medina as well, the home of Muhammad’s Ethiopian wife, Maryam, where his son Ibrahim was born, has been paved over. In Mecca, the house of his first wife, Khadija, the first person to whom he divulged his mission, has been turned into public toilets. In 1998, the grave of the prophet’s mother, Amina bint Wahb, was bulldozed in Abwa, after which gasoline was poured on it and set alight.

Israel is more determined than ever to fight for its security and its future, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday at a dedication ceremony at the Nahalat Yitzhak cemetery in Tel Aviv of a new memorial to the Altalena.

In a clear reference to this month’s twin UNESCO votes erasing any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, Netanyahu said this struggle plays out not only in the fight against terrorism, in defending the borders and, “from time to time on the battlefield,” but also in the struggle for “historical truth.”

It is a struggle, he said, “over our roots, our past, our right to our homeland – the land of Israel, our capital Jerusalem.” It is a struggle, he added, against “those who want to erase our past, and our future – and, therefore, we will continue to fight over the truth and defend, build and develop the State of Israel in all spheres as a model nation and one of the most advanced in the world.”

The monument he dedicated, in the shape of a sinking ship, bears the words spoken by Menachem Begin, “There will never be a civil war.”

Sixteen Irgun fighters and three IDF soldiers were killed when David Ben-Gurion gave the order to fire on the Altalena Irgun arms ship in June 1948 in what has since widely been viewed as a watershed moment in placing all the country’s weaponry under one authority.

To prevent civil war, Begin – then commander of the Irgun – ordered his men not to retaliate.

Many of those killed are buried in the Nahalat Yitzhak cemetery.

“Pride, pain and brotherhood is the essence of the Altalena story,” said Netanyahu.

First of all, he said, the Altalena symbolized pride and uncompromising loyalty in the idea of a Jewish national home because the ship carried on board hundreds of motivated youth from the Diaspora who wanted to become fighters in the national cause, as well as large amounts of arms that were to be sent to the different fronts during the War of Independence.

With the pride, however, came the pain “which continues to this day,” he said.

“As great was the pride of the Altalena, so too was the tragedy of the Altalena,” he declared.

“Only five weeks after the establishment of the state, Jews fired against Jews, brother raised his hand against brother. And all that as a result of an excessive sense of power, hasty decision making and unnecessary use of force. The bitter result was the spilling of blood that left a deep and painful scar on the soul of the nation.”

The answer to the pain, he said, was “brotherhood.”

“Against the hasty order by government officials to open fire, Menachem Begin will forever be remembered for having prevented a much greater tragedy through his forbearance, self-control and greatness of spirit,” the prime minister said.

10/26/2016

Assuming a consensus support, the Palestinians and the Jordanians submitted the softer version of the resolution for a vote.

For a man who just lost a significant vote, Israel’s Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen was having what he described as a “dream” day.

Israel had always known that it would lose the vote at the World Heritage Committee meeting in Paris on a resolution that ignores Jewish ties to the Temple Mount. So it worked instead to ensure that the text was as benign as possible and that it passed with minimal support.

Its efforts in these regards were successful, but only after a touch-and-go drama, with last-minute twists and turns, up until Wednesday’s vote which ended the threeday meeting.

It involved an Israeli bluff to counter a Palestinian threat intended to pressure the WHC to pass the resolution by consensus.

The Palestinian Authority and Jordan had warned that they would strengthen the Muslim claims to the site in the resolution, unless there were a consensus vote on the existing text, which was a softer version than the one the WHC approved last year.

Israel allowed them to believe they had the consensus support. Part of that strategy was the release of statements to the media about how Israel expected a major loss at the WHC meeting in Paris.

Assuming a consensus support, the Palestinians and the Jordanians submitted the softer version of the resolution for a vote.

It was only until the meeting opened, and Tanzania and Croatia called for a secret ballot, that the Palestinians and the Jordanians suddenly understood that events would not go as planed.

For over half an hour the Arab countries on the committee, led by Lebanon and with the help of Cuba, attempted and ultimately failed to push forward a consensus motion.

The vote that then took place was on the less contentious text, particularly compared to the one that the committee approved in 2015.

The World Heritage Committee votes annually on Jerusalem, so that it can reaffirm its placement on the list of endangered World Heritage Sites. Wednesday’s resolution was also less problematic than the one approved earlier this month by UNESCO’s 58-member executive board.

Among the critical differences was the restoration of the Jewish terms of reference for the Western Wall, which in past resolutions had been in quotation marks or parentheses, with the text referring to the holy Jewish site only by its Muslim name, the Buraq Wall.

There were fewer references to the Temple Mount’s Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif, and only one statement that it is a Muslim holy site of worship.

The 2016 WHC text spoke once of the Israeli “occupation” authorities, but dropped the 10 references in the 2015 text to Israel as an “occupying power.”

Shama-Hacohen said that it had been unclear until Wednesday morning how much support Israel had. In the end, he said, only the Arab states on the committee, along with Cuba and Vietnam, supported the resolution.

“We succeeded in surprising them [the Palestinians and the Arab states] at the last minute,” Shama-Hacohen said. “Credit for this is due to the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office.

“I want to issue a special thanks to two brave nations, Croatia and Tanzania, that lay on the fence for Israel and publicly asked for a vote, [and] stood against the wishes of the Arab world,” Shama-Hacohen said. He also thanked the United States for the significant role that it played.

“With respect to the content, the Arab nations had no choice but to beat an almost complete retreat on the issue of the Western Wall,” Shama- Hacohen said.

The problem that remained was referring to the Temple Mount solely by its Muslim name, al-Haram al-Sharif, he said. “But that issue will also be solved one day, and the truth will win out.”

An important panel at the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) on Wednesday morning approved a controversial resolution that ignores Jewish and Christian ties to the Temple Mount. The decision came a week after a similar resolution was approved by the body and elicited angry responses from Israel, several world leaders and even the body’s own director-general.

Convening at its annual meeting in Paris, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee adopted Draft Resolution 40COM 7A.13, entitled “Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls,” by a large majority, with 10 countries voting in favor, eight abstaining and two opposing the text. Eight “yes” votes were needed for the resolution to pass.

Jamaica was absent and did not participate in the vote.

The resolution, which accuses Israel of various violations, echoed last week’s decision in referring to the Temple Mount compound solely by its Muslim names, “Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” and defined it only as “a Muslim holy site of worship.” As the site of the two Biblical temples, the mount is the holiest place in Judaism. But unlike last week’s resolution, the draft did not mention the importance of Jerusalem’s Old City for “the three monotheistic religions.”

The Lebanese ambassador to UNESCO voting on the World Heritage Committee’s a resolution ignoring Jewish and Christian ties to Jerusalem’s Old City in Paris, October 26, 2016 (screen shot UNESCO website)

At the opening of Wednesday’s session, the chairperson of the World Heritage Committee, Turkish diplomat Lale Ülker, proposed that the resolution be adopted “by consensus,” which would have given the appearance of a unanimous decision. A majority of member states supported her proposal, but Tanzania and Croatia asked for a secret ballot. Despite vociferous opposition by Lebanon, Tunisia, Cuba and other states that pushed for “consensus,” the committee’s legal adviser eventually ruled that a secret ballot would be held on the resolution, paving the way for the abstentions.

Despite frantic Israeli efforts to convince some of the committee’s member states to oppose the resolution, its eventual adoption did not come as a surprise to anyone in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Tuesday night that UNESCO’s second vote on the matter within a few days showed the organization remains a “theater of the absurd.” He said that while “extremist Muslim forces are destroying mosques and churches, Israel is the only country in the region that protects them and allows freedom of worship.”

Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen watches on as the World Heritage Committee votes on a resolution ignoring Jewish and Christian ties to Jerusalem’s Old City in Paris, October 26, 2016 (screen shot UNESCO website)

According to Israel’s envoy to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, Netanyahu instructed him to work to convince countries likely to abstain to go further and cast a vote against the resolution, arguing that an abstention would be akin to support. He described the resolution as “diplomatic jihad” against the Jewish people, Judaism and Christianity.

“Israel respects Muslim and other faiths and their presence in our holiest of places, and it is tragic that the other side doesn’t have a leadership that will do the same, but rather one that is engaged only in doing the exact opposite,” Shama-Hacohen said Tuesday during a meeting with UNESCO’s director-general, Irina Bokova. “This is no longer an Israeli-Palestinian struggle, but an Arab struggle against the entire Jewish world. It is clear that Israel and the Jewish people will survive this, yet it remains unclear whether UNESCO will.”

Shama-Hacohen and the heads of two Israeli advocacy groups, StandWithUs and the International Legal Forum, handed Bokova a petition signed by more than 77,000 Jews and Christians calling on UNESCO “to recognize the irrefutable deep historic, cultural and religious connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.”

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee voting on a resolution ignoring Jewish and Christian ties to Jerusalem’s Old City in Paris, October 26, 2016 (screen shot UNESCO website)

The earlier resolution, which was approved October 13 at the UNESCO committee stage with 24 “yes” votes, six “no” votes and 26 abstentions, and then formally confirmed by UNESCO’s executive on October 18, sparked vociferous condemnation in Israel, as well as from UNESCO’s own director, Irina Bokova, and several foreign leaders.

Last week’s text referred to Israel as “the occupying power” at the holy sites. The resolution adopted Wednesday — sponsored by Kuwait, Lebanon and Tunisia — did not, which Israel considers a minor victory. In another significant divergence from the October 13 text, the new version did not put quotation marks around the designation “Western Wall,” a punctuation seen in Israel as bolstering the original resolution’s disdain for Judaism’s connection to its holiest site.

This year’s member countries of the committee made things particularly difficult for Israel. Germany, Columbia and Japan, all sympathetic nations to Israel, are no longer involved, and in their place are Tunisia, Kuwait, Lebanon and Indonesia, bringing to nine the total number of Muslim countries.

10/26/2016

Despite Israeli efforts, World Heritage Committee will likely accept a resolution using only the Muslim name for the site

Just a week after the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) ratified a controversial resolution that ignored Jewish and Christian ties to the Temple Mount, a similar resolution is expected to be passed by the body’s World Heritage Committee Wednesday.

Barring any last minute delay, the resolution, entitled “Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls,” will be presented before the committee’s 21 member states. As with last week’s contentious text, the latest draft is expected to pass with a comfortable majority.

The wording of the resolution has not yet been finalized, with frantic multi-party negotiations on the text continuing in UNESCO’s Paris headquarters through the night and into Wednesday morning. A draft of the resolution obtained by The Times of Israel on Sunday once again referred to the Temple Mount compound solely by its Muslim names, “Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” and defined it only as “a Muslim holy site of worship.”

As the site of the biblical temples, the mount is the holiest place in Judaism. Unlike last week’s resolution, the draft likely to be adopted Wednesday will not mention the importance of Jerusalem’s Old City for “the three monotheistic religions.”

Last week’s text referred to Israel as “the occupying power” at the holy sites. The new resolution does not, which Israel considers a minor victory. In addition, the new version doesn’t put quotation marks around the designation “Western Wall,” a punctuation seen in Israel as bolstering the original resolution’s disdain of a Jewish connection to Judaism’s holiest site.

The Foreign Ministry worked frantically through the night in a bid to delay the resolution, but it seemed unlikely that they would succeed, and officials said they viewed the outcome of the vote as a foregone conclusion.

“It seems that the resolution will pass and that UNESCO will continue to dance to the Palestinians’ tune,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said Wednesday morning. The vote itself does not have much practical significance, he told Army Radio, but it shows the Palestinians that they can use the body to blame Israel for anything they wish. He referred to the Palestinian efforts as “incitement.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Tuesday night that UNESCO’s second vote on the matter within a few days shows the organization remains a “theater of the absurd.” He said that while “extremist Muslim forces are destroying mosques and churches, Israel is the only country in the region that protects them and allows freedom of worship.”

According to Israel’s envoy to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, Netanyahu instructed him to work to convince countries likely to abstain to go further and cast a vote against the resolution, arguing that an abstention is akin to support. He described the resolution as “diplomatic jihad” against the Jewish people, Judaism and Christianity.

“Israel respects Muslim and other faiths and their presence in our holiest of places, and it is tragic that the other side doesn’t have a leadership that will do the same, but rather one that is engaged only in doing the exact opposite,” Shama-Hacohen said Tuesday during a meeting with UNESCO’s director-general, Irina Bokova. “This is no longer an Israeli-Palestinian struggle, but an Arab struggle against the entire Jewish world. It is clear that Israel and the Jewish people will survive this, yet it remains unclear whether UNESCO will.”

Shama-Hacohen and the heads of two pro-Israel organizations, StandWithUs and the International Legal Forum, handed Bokova a petition signed by more than 77,000 Jews and Christians calling on UNESCO “to recognize the irrefutable deep historic, cultural and religious connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.”

Israeli diplomats in Paris were working to convince at least two member states to demand a vote on the resolution so that it would not pass on consensus, giving the appearance of a unanimous decision. So far only one of the European countries has agreed to press for a vote, officials said, without elaborating.

This year’s member countries of the committee make things particularly difficult for Israel. Germany, Columbia and Japan, all sympathetic nations to Israel, are no longer involved, and in their place are Tunisia, Kuwait, Lebanon and Indonesia, bringing to nine the total number of Muslim countries, which are all expected to vote in favor of the resolution, along with Vietnam. Poland, Finland, Croatia, Portugal, the four European countries, said they would abstain if the resolution is put to a vote.

The adoption of the resolution would lead to an absurd situation whereby the archaeological digs on and around the site of the Temple Mount, which have unearthed copious evidence of a Jewish connection to the site, may now be designated as destruction of the Muslim site.

Agency’s World Heritage Committee set on Wednesday to approve resolution that makes no mention of Jewish or Christian links to holy city

Just a week after the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) ratified a controversial resolution that ignored Jewish and Christian ties to the Temple Mount, the body’s World Heritage Committee is set to vote on a similar text.

The UNESCO heritage committee’s 21 member states are expected to vote on Wednesday in Paris on the resolution, entitled, “Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls.” As with last week’s contentious text, the latest draft is expected to pass with a comfortable majority.

A draft of the resolution obtained by The Times of Israel once again refers to the Temple Mount compound solely by its Muslim names, “Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” and defines it only as “a Muslim holy site of worship.” As the site of the Biblical temples, the mount is the holiest place in Judaism.

While last week’s text did include one passage with a mention of the importance of Jerusalem’s Old City for “the three monotheistic religions,” the heritage committee’s resolution text includes no references to Jewish or Christian ties to the area’s holy sites.

According to Israeli officials, there is some chance that the Arab nations sponsoring the resolution — Kuwait, Lebanon and Tunisia — will agree to insert a similar passage in the final draft, in order to ensure that Western countries vote for the resolution, or at least abstain.

Last week’s resolution referred to Israel as “the occupying power” at the holy sites. The new resolution does not. Nor does the new version put quotation marks around the Jewish term “Western Wall,” a punctuation seen in Israel as further bolstering the original resolution’s disdain of a Jewish connection to Judaism’s holiest site. Israel’s envoy to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, said over the weekend that these seemingly minor changes in so hostile a text nonetheless mark significant concessions on the part of Arab states, which would not have been achievable only a few months ago.

Last week’s resolution, which was approved at the UNESCO committee stage on October 13 with 24 “yes” votes, six “no” votes and 26 abstentions, and then formally confirmed by UNESCO’s executive on October 18, sparked vociferous condemnation in Israel, as well as from UNESCO’s own director and several foreign leaders. A chorus of Israeli politicians, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but including left-wing lawmakers, slammed the decision as absurd and UNESCO as detached from reality.

Immediately after the committee stage vote, the agency’s director-general, Irina Bokova, issued a rare statement rebuking member states for the vote. To “deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity” of the Temple Mount, she stated.

Irina Bokova in April 2016. (Kena Betancur/AFP)

Mexico and Brazil, which voted in favor of the resolution, later expressed regret and vowed to abstain in future votes on the matter. Italy, which abstained, said it would henceforth vote against similar resolutions.

“To say that the Jewish People has no connection to Jerusalem is like saying that the sun creates darkness,” Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told Netanyahu during a phone call over the weekend.

Renzi promised to try to convince other European governments to adopt his position, according to a read-out of the call issued by Netanyahu’s office.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu said that even the theater of the absurd has limits and noted that it was important that countries which respected both themselves and the truth not participate in it. He added that it was not a political question but one of historical facts,” the statement read.

Netanyahu views Renzi’s position as “a welcome process of changing direction in extreme votes against Israel in international forums,” the statement continued. “The change in UN institutions will take some years and will also entail disappointments but these are – without doubt – the first signs of a welcome change.”

Italy, Brazil and Mexico are not members of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, and thus will not be able to vote on Wednesday.

According to Shama-Hacohen, Netanyahu instructed him to work to convince countries likely to abstain to go further and cast a vote against the resolution, arguing that an abstention is akin to support.

“If the Palestinians continue to adhere to this dangerous path, which is actually a diplomatic jihad against the Jewish people, Judaism and Christianity, they will discover that last week’s surprises from Mexico and Italy are only the beginning,” he insisted.

Shama-Hacohen added that an ambassador from a leading Arab state had told him he did not understand what the Palestinians were trying to accomplish with their resolutions, but that political pressures meant his government was forced to tow the Palestinian line.